


Five Reasons No One Knows Lorne's First Name

by torakowalski



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: 5 Things, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-08-31
Updated: 2006-08-31
Packaged: 2017-10-18 19:25:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/192399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torakowalski/pseuds/torakowalski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>See title!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Reasons No One Knows Lorne's First Name

**Author's Note:**

> For [](http://bluebrocade.livejournal.com/profile)[**bluebrocade**](http://bluebrocade.livejournal.com/).

1\. **Woof**

When she was five months pregnant, Lorne’s mother threaded a needle with a piece of cotton and held it over her palm. The needle swung from side to side: she was having a girl.

Lorne’s father wasn’t a superstitious man, but his normally sensible, well-balanced wife had turned into a hormonal monster since she’d got pregnant and he was terrified. He decided agreeing that she knew the sex of their baby was a very small sacrifice if it kept her happy.

So when Lorne was born his parents were… unprepared to say the least. They’d bought pink clothes, painted the nursery in candy stripes, bought a wide selection of dolls, and only selected girl’s names. The first three were easily rectified by a lick of paint and a very progressive dismissal of gender stereotypes.

The name was harder to solve. Mrs Lorne, having endured nineteen hours of labor only to be presented with a baby with slightly more between its legs than she’d been expecting, calmly handed her baby over to her husband, told him to deal with it, and had a quiet meltdown.

Mr Lorne, pressed by the registrar for a name, panicked and pounced upon the first boy’s name he could come up with: that of their dear, recently deceased, chocolate Labrador.

In his more forgiving moments, Lorne can be thankful he isn’t called Rover.

  
2\. **I Robot?**

He doesn’t have a first name. His makers named him Lorne and only Lorne and programmed him to dispose of any one who asked too many questions about it.

That’s not strictly true, but Lorne gets a perverse thrill of satisfaction every time he makes an over-inquisitive new scientist turn pale and back away slowly.

He doesn’t stop even when McKay threatens to set Sheppard on him or when for several months the only scientist prepared to go off-world with him turns out to be an insanely bouncy botanist with a hard-on for alien plantlife.

3\. **Trust**

Some people, obviously, do know his first name. It’s on both his medical and personal files, no matter how hard he bribed Novak on the Daedalus and Zelenka here in the city to hack in and change it.

Dr Weir is a professional and a lady and never calls him on it. The only hint he has that she knows is the soft glint she used to get in her eyes the first few times they met. A glint which he thinks, hopes, is fading now he’s proving himself to be one of them.

Sheppard still smirks every time Lorne hands him a stack of mission reports that Lorne’s countersigned. The fact that Sheppard should have been the one doing the paperwork makes Lorne think he should keep his smirking to himself. But it’s the fact that Lorne’s keeping enough secrets for him (from McKay, about McKay, but always McKay related) that reassures him that Sheppard will never give his secret away.

4\. **Soot**

Lorne’s dogtags are cold now, no residual heat from the fire or from his body. The metal’s twisted: name and serial number charred passed recognition, only the L-O-and-N still visible.

Dr Parrish smoothes his thumb across the surface (the soot’s long gone, staining his fingers) and wishes a thousand wishes.

5\. **Aftermath**

When Lorne and his team get back from M6R-867, the ‘gate room seems over-crowded. Sheppard’s team can fill any given space by themselves, but today the addition of Ladon Radim’s rebels make the room seem to bulge at the edges and Lorne feels a wave of claustrophobia.

He slips out a side door and heads to his room. He knows he’ll need to debrief eventually, but right now all he wants is a shower and to get out of these god-awful clothes.

He stands under the shower until his fingers wrinkle and his toes turn pink, Atlantis responding to his wishes every time he begs for hotter water. He’s sweating by the time he steps out into the main living area, naked but for the towel around his waist, but he finally, finally feels clean.

He stops in the doorway, startled to find Dr Parrish standing in the middle of the main room, staring at him like… like he’s just come back from the dead. Oh.

“Doc,” Lorne says softly, holding up one hand, hoping to calm him, while he uses the other hand to make sure his towel stays in place.

There’s a soft thump of something hitting the floor. Lorne distantly makes out dogtags, but then he’s distracted by the way Parrish is shaking.

He approaches him carefully.

“They said,” Parrish whispers, “Katie said, but I didn’t…”

Then there’s a blur of movement and Lorne, battle-ready though he always is, does nothing to defend himself from six-feet something of wiry botanist suddenly wrapping around him. After a paralysed moment, he zones in on the soft little gasps Parrish is making into his neck and realises he doesn’t want to.

“I thought you were dead,” Parrish’s voice is scratchy. His hands are flat on Lorne’s back, fingertips just curving into his skin, but Lorne doesn’t think he realises Lorne is as good as naked.

“It was the Genii,” Lorne says, when what he means is _I’m sorry_ and _I didn’t know_.

Parrish nods against his shoulder, then looks up. He opens his mouth, then closes it again. A blush is creeping up his neck and he’s looking flustered, beginning to realise where he is and what he’s doing.

Without letting himself think about it, Lorne leans up and kisses him, open mouthed but soft, not wanting to freak him out.

Parrish exhales into his mouth and slumps against him, all the tension leaching out of him. Their next kiss is deeper, all tongue and wet heat and Lorne stops worrying about keeping his towel up.

Later, they’re lying side by side on Lorne’s bed and Lorne is thinking _Huh?_ and _Cool_ looping in lazy circles through his brain.

Parrish leans up on one arm and looks down at Lorne. “My name’s David,” he says, which of course Lorne knew, but it’s not like he’s ever used it before.

Lorne thinks for a minute, has to give it serious consideration, then he whispers his own name into Parrish’s ear.

Parrish becomes the first person since kindergarten not to laugh and for that Lorne has to kiss him again.

//End


End file.
